"…the life and ideas of Ezra Heywood, an individualist anarchist who was active in the abolitionist, labor reform, and free-love movements. A Garrisonian non-resistant for several years, Heywood eventually broke with most abolitionists over their support of the war effort. During the Civil War, he adopted the anarchist philosophy of Josiah Warren, who argued for a stateless society based on the sovereignty of the individual.

Arguing that marriage was a form of slavery, Heywood was a key figure in the small but outspoken free-love movement. The basis of free love was a woman’s right to deny her vagina to anyone, including her husband. Free lovers argued that women and men should enjoy equality in social, political, economic, and sexual matters".